Thompson Valley staying in house for new head football coach

Matt Smith tabbed to lead the Eagles

By Mike Brohard Sports Editor

Posted:
04/12/2013 05:47:29 PM MDT

Matt Smith

What Ernie Derrera wanted most for the Thompson Valley High School football program was a coach who was in the building. When it became clear to the athletic director that was becoming a fleeting dream, he decided staying in the family was his next best option.

With that, Derrera is set to recommend Matt Smith to the Thompson School Board as the next football coach. Smith has been an assistant on staff for the past four seasons and teaches math and coaches at Walt Clark Middle School, giving him a definite familiarity.

"He's a quality character guy who is known to our coaching staff and knows our kids," Derrera said. "We feel that even though he grew up outside the state, he bleeds black and gold and already has a huge buy-in to what we're doing at Thompson Valley."

In the infancy stage of collecting resumes, players started approaching Derrera and touting their support for Smith, who originally hails from Minnesota.

Though his work with the program (he has been a defensive coordinator at the freshman and junior varsity level and the secondary coach with the varsity team, as well as an assistant wrestling coach) and at Walt Clark (he is the head wrestling coach and has worked with the track program), Smith estimates he's had contact with about 80 percent of the kids on the team.

So while he's not in the building, he feels his presence will be common in the hallways.

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"Absolutely. I'm only a few blocks away, and I'm there pretty much from fall through winter and into the spring," Smith said. "I'm not only able to keep contact through football, but after. During my extra time, I can pop into the building and be checking up on kids, checking up on grades. I plan on being a presence and maintaining those connections."

Derrera said during Smith's interviews, wins and losses weren't talked about, something he liked. The primary focus was on building quality and character in the players he would coach, and that struck a chord with those involved with the search.

Jack Varusaka, one of the players who was in Smith's corner from the start, said the ability to move forward is made that much easier by turning to one of their own.

"I'm beyond happy," Varuska said. "We don't have to restart this summer. We can just add on to what we achieved last year. It makes a difference, because we've grown up with Coach Smith, basically."

What Smith wants to focus on first is changing the culture surrounding the program and building up the numbers. He noted there are plenty of athletes at Thompson Valley who don't play football, and in the future, he wants to see the program as something the students at Thompson Valley want to be associated with.

"We made great strides last year moving in the right direction," Smith said. "Really, it's going to take building the program from the ground up and getting more kids involved. The first thing we need to do is get more numbers; I want to get them excited about football on this side of town.

"It's been a process over the past three or four years of changing the culture. We're almost there, we just need to take it to the next step. With consistency and putting quality coaches around kids, they'll see the pay off."

The hope is Smith will help stop the constant change at the top. He replaces Clint Fick, who stepped in last minute last year after Michael DeWall left after three years to take another job. Smith represents the eighth head coach in the past 20 years.

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